Below is the step-by-step you need to follow to download the tools required for development on Cortex-M controllers. In this article I mention some information specific to STM, but the guide works for any vendor.

Arm Embedded Tool Chain

It contains the set of tools needed to validate, test and compile programs developed for 32-bit Cortex processors (the Cortex-M, Cortex-R and A models).

GNU/Linux

Download the latest version available on the official site. Preferably, save the file in the /usr/share directory.

Once that is done, extract the files and delete the compressed file:

sudo tar xjf gcc-arm-none-eabi-your-version.bz2 -C /usr/share/
rm gcc-arm-none-eabi-your-version.bz2

After that, you should create symbolic links so these programs are available across the whole system:

sudo ln -s /usr/share/gcc-arm-none-eabi-your-version/bin/* /usr/bin/

You may also need to install some additional tools, like libncurses and libtinfo.

arm-none-eabi-gcc --version
arm-none-eabi-g++ --version
arm-none-eabi-gdb --version
arm-none-eabi-size --version

To check the installation, open a new terminal window and type:

arm-none-eabi-gcc --version
arm-none-eabi-g++ --version
arm-none-eabi-gdb --version
arm-none-eabi-size --version

Windows

Download the installer from the official site. Then run it and follow the Wizard’s instructions.

To check the installation, open a CMD window (Windows key + R, type CMD) and type:

arm-none-eabi-gcc --version
arm-none-eabi-g++ --version
arm-none-eabi-gdb --version
arm-none-eabi-size --version

Mac

The easiest way to install this and the other tools is using Brew; if you don’t have it yet, you can install it by running the command below:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Once it is installed, you only need to run the command below:

brew install --cask gcc-arm-embedded

To check the installation, open a new terminal window and type:

arm-none-eabi-gcc --version
arm-none-eabi-g++ --version
arm-none-eabi-gdb --version
arm-none-eabi-size --version

OpenOCD

It is the tool that handles the communication between the computer and the controller; it is used mainly to help with debugging, but it can also be used as a flasher. It works as a GDB server, which receives the requests made by GDB clients, and also as a telnet server.

GNU/Linux

For the most recent versions of OpenOCD, you will need libftdi (even if you have an ST-Link connector).

The easiest way to install it is using your package manager.

On Debian, for example, you need to run:

sudo apt install openocd

Check which package manager you have; it probably won’t be much different from this.

To check that it was installed correctly, type:

openocd --version

The output should be something like:

Open On-Chip Debugger 0.11.0
Licensed under GNU GPL v2
For bug reports, read
	http://openocd.org/doc/doxygen/bugs.html

Windows

The easiest way is through chocolatey, a package manager made specifically for Windows. Download choco through that link, install it, and then run this command in the command prompt:

choco install openocd

You can also download the latest version straight from the repository through this link. The file is at the end of the page and its name will be something like openocd-v0.x.x-i686-w64-mingw32.tar.gz, where x.x is the number of the latest version available.

To check that it was installed correctly, open the prompt and type:

openocd --version

The output should be something like:

Open On-Chip Debugger 0.11.0
Licensed under GNU GPL v2
For bug reports, read
	http://openocd.org/doc/doxygen/bugs.html

Mac

On the Mac, as always, the easiest way to install it is using Brew, with the command:

brew install open-ocd

To check that it was installed correctly, type:

openocd --version

The output should be something like:

Open On-Chip Debugger 0.11.0
Licensed under GNU GPL v2
For bug reports, read
	http://openocd.org/doc/doxygen/bugs.html

GNU Make

A tool used to help run repetitive tasks; it also figures out which parts of the program need to be recompiled and runs the related tasks automatically.

Linux and Mac

It already comes installed by default on these systems.

Windows

The easiest way is through chocolatey, a package manager made specifically for Windows. Download choco through that link, install it, and then run this command in the command prompt:

choco install make

You can also install it directly through this link, but pay attention: unlike choco, you will have to install the dependencies and do the configuration by hand.

CMSIS

The best way to get the most recent version is straight from the GitHub repository, at https://github.com/STMicroelectronics/STM32CubeF1/tags. You can download the files by clicking the “zip” link, right next to the date of the latest release. If you want, you can also clone the latest version straight from the project’s master or main branch.

If you are following our course on YouTube, run the code below in the root directory of your project:

git clone --depth 1 [email protected]:STMicroelectronics/STM32CubeF1.git stm32 && rm -rf $_/.git

It downloads the most recent files into a directory called stm32, wherever you run it.

Conclusion

With just the tools above, you will be able to develop for any processor in the Cortex-M, A and R lines, on every platform and operating system. And as you may have noticed, they have evolved a lot, and installing them gets easier every time. Now you just need to download them and start programming.